Tuesday, September 1, 2015

Day 4: Adoption Day

This morning I decided to try and see if Hallie would let me bathe her. She did great!

Making funny faces.

Hallie doesn't have a "chosen one", for which I am very grateful. She'll happily go to Ryan and I equally. Although, she won't give Ryan kisses because she doesn't like his beard. That's an understatement, she actually despises his beard and pulls the funniest faces at the idea of touching it. She also really dislikes the stuffed elephant we brought for her and pulls a similar face then tosses it whenever we hand it to her. She definitely likes us, but still doesn't grasp the whole Mama/Baba/Family concept. She called her nannies Mama and sometimes calls Kaitlyn and our guide Mama too. She'll go to whichever "Mama" is most convenient at the time. Indiscriminate affection is a common issue with children who have lived in an orphanage. It's a survival mechanism born out of not having a person to permanently attach to and will probably take some time to resolve as we work on forming a secure attachment.

Breakfast time cutie.

We spent a good part of the day driving around Shanghai getting things done to complete Hallie's adoption. We only had to go three places, but traffic here is so bad, it takes forever to get anywhere.

Our first stop was a photo studio where we had to get a photo taken for Hallie's adoption certificate. This advertisement on the wall... We decided it was a picture of the "Chubby Baby" Kaitlyn likes to sleep talk about. Yikes!

When we were out and about, Hallie got very quiet again. I wonder what's going on in her mind. I'm sure she's confused about where we are going and what we are doing. There is so much for her to process.

Our next stop was this office where the adoption was made final.

"Miss Manners" liked to wipe her face with a tissue in between sips of water.

Hallie is officially an Andersen!

Back in the van again... off to get our adoption paperwork notarized. By this point, I was exhausted and car sick, so I assume Hallie was too.

Hallie had her first Happy Meal. She was not impressed and I'm okay with that since, once we're home, McDonalds will not be on the menu.

After a late lunch, we went back to the
hotel room for a nap and ended up sleeping through dinner. I think we
all needed the extra rest, but now we're worried about whether or not
we'll be able to sleep through the night. Hopefully we won't regret that nap!

By: Amy Andersen I designed this blanket because I love cables, but I don’t like there to be a “wrong side” of a blanket. So I made a rev...

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